Rina Singh: Hi, this is Rina Singh, and I'm the author of 111 Trees. I'm going to tell you a bit about how I came to write the book, that is set in India, and I'll share an excerpt with you. But first, a little background for the story. In India, gender inequality has been part of everyday life for centuries. India was originally an agricultural society, where an extra pair of hands was valued in the field. So the birth of a boy was a cause for celebration. A girl, however, was considered a disappointment and a burden.

Gender bias, formed centuries ago, continued into modern times and crept into all walks of life. It was against this backdrop that I read a news clip about a man in a desert village in Rajasthan, who planted trees every time a girl child was born in his village. Not one tree, not 11 trees, but 111 trees. The story sounded too good to be true, so I decided to make a trip to this village on my visit to India. I was surprised to see such a beautiful and clean village. I visited the school and was very proud to see girls learning along with the boys. I saw a forest growing in the middle of a desert.

I met Sundar Paliwal, the protagonist of the book, and he spent the day showing me the village and then invited me to his home, where I interviewed him. At the time, I wasn't sure if it will ever become a book, but the story had already begun to form in my heart.

Now I'll read an excerpt for you:

All of a sudden, Sundar knows what he has to do. Every girl born in the village will be welcomed with the planting of 111 trees. Sundar shares his idea with the men and women of the village. The villagers think Sundar has lost his mind. They reject his plan. It's against their tradition to honor girls. They argue. They are afraid the world will laugh at them. They don't understand this new way of thinking.

But Sundar keeps talking to the villagers. He shows them how the factory is slowly destroying the land. He tells them of other nations where girls and boys are treated equally, where there is plenty of water and electricity, and enough wealth and knowledge to go to the moon. He even offers to plant the trees in the girls' names himself -- if the villagers promise to send their daughters to school and wait to marry them off until they turn eighteen. Slowly, very slowly, the villagers begin to understand that by welcoming girls and planting trees, they might bring balance back to nature.